


your eyes, sapphires

by bulut



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, Insecurity, M/M, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, feather-light angst, third year first years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:55:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25669303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bulut/pseuds/bulut
Summary: Third year at high school is a forest fire. Shelter is in Kageyama's eyes.
Relationships: Kageyama Tobio/Tsukishima Kei
Comments: 15
Kudos: 124





	your eyes, sapphires

**Author's Note:**

> i don't follow the manga, so kageyama's scouting might be irrelevant to how things progressed in canon.

As is the case for everybody in their last year of high school, Kei feels his life resisting all his attempts at control and galloping off on its own way, leaving its protagonist behind to choke on the dust it kicked up.

The only anchor keeping him in place is his playing on the same team as an Olympics candidate and the confidence it brings. He’s used to having a king at his back, throwing his bolstering shadow upon them, almost fond of it. Now that there aren’t any upperclassmen as their pillars, Kageyama is someone he can rely on. Yamaguchi, Hinata, Yachi, they’re all in better condition than they’ve ever been, every one of them grown into themselves and taking up their distinct shapes in the moulds of adulthood, but Kageyama feels different than the rest.

Kageyama has been feeling different than the rest for some time now.

In their study sessions, through practice matches in teams of two, school trips with mixed classes, Kei got used to forming a pair with Kageyama. Slowly pushing Kageyama’s package deal, Hinata, aside, to build his own pair with Yamaguchi. Kei noticed the decrease in the time he spent with his best friend, the frightening rate at which his and Kageyama’s relationship progressed. Each passing day, Kageyama’s lack of tact became less annoying and more endearing. And now a terrifying development, muddling his thoughts and confusing his mental processes as it broods at the centre of his mind, each day new thoughts incubated.

Kei is no stranger to be flirted with. He receives confession letters and Valentine’s chocolates, has rival players compliment his eyes and ask for his number in tournaments; he even had a particularly persistent bedhead ask him on a date, but none of it makes him as lightheaded as sleeping in neighbouring futons with Kageyama in training camps did at their last training camp right before the start of the term. Since then, Kei has been pondering upon its implications.

Stupid thing to worry about with life-changing exams looming above, a national tournament to shoot for. But, alarms pinging in his head, because what else could this be spelling but danger—one look in Kageyama’s direction, and his insides are smoke.

The clock of his final year at high school is ticking, and his happiness might be slipping out of reach.

-

On a particularly cold November day, Kageyama lends him his green scarf.

“I know you get cold easily,” he grumbles, pressing the scarf into Kei’s unresponsive hands. “Just take it.”

And Kei has a nagging brother at home, lying in wait like a hawk for any sign of someone in Kei’s life, but he parades the scarf all the way to home, smiling into it. Bathing in the scent of expensive athlete’s deodorant and quality men’s perfume.

Such a rich little boy.

Passing by a toy’s shop window, instrumental music bleeding through his headphones into his free ears, he draws parallels between dark-eyed prodigy setters and Ken dolls.

-

Yamaguchi moving on from his crush on Yachi and starting a tear-inducingly cordial textpalship with some Terushima from an ex-rival school was one thing, but Hinata receiving confession letters is the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Kei might not be a sappy romantic, but the age seventeen isn’t easy on anyone, and the good old flame of competition flares at the thought of Hinata of all people finding love before he does. Teachers advising him to quit volleyball on one front, Kageyama’s silent challenges to jump higher, block wider, teach the underclassmen better on the other, the butterflies in his stomach like his own body turning against him, and his parents’ silent agreement with his teachers not even striking from a warfront but directly pouring down on him in arrows—he needs this win, pathetic though it might be.

His resolution lasts a grand three minutes before Kageyama enters his line of vision, and oh, it’s impossible, isn’t it?

Kageyama is on a path, isn’t he? Destined for the grand stage, to play with the likes of him and carry Japan to victory. He’s bigger than this small Miyagi town, he’s bigger than Sendai; he’s bigger than Tokyo, the farthest extent Kei envisions his future to reach.

After a lifetime of rigidity in his principles and refusal to budge for anyone, Kei doesn’t know how to cope with this feeling of inadequacy.

The King chews his muttered greeting in his mouth, as always, not quite meeting Kei’s eyes, and Kei is on his way back to his homeroom in no time, but that last look at Kageyama’s furrowed brows tells him that the sillage of all his failings lingers.

-

December brings with it Kageyama’s birthday. Kei still hasn’t returned the green scarf.

Washed clean of the elite scent, the folded scarf now sits in a paper bag beside his backpack. Kei thought a birthday present would be overkill, so he settles for a snack cake he’ll buy on his way to school. It’s a notch or two down from Kageyama’s strawberry scone on his own birthday, fresh from the bakery shop, but he will pack up his feelings with it, to present to the one person in his life who’s as bad with his words as Kei is. Let his actions speak in his stead, only not too loud that Kageyama can actually hear.

He’s setting up a play, a ruse to ease the regret that will without a doubt consume his heart when the curtain falls. When the lacquer of the decor chips off, and the last one of the actors leaving the stage reveals a child holding in his hands two marionettes, wooden limbs broken in wrong angles, that’s when he will let it sink in that the child is him, and he’s been crying from the start of the play to the finish.

He’s been considering leaving the team to focus on his studies. The one thing keeping him back is the mental image of the hurt look that will tinge Kageyama’s face with storm grey if he does. But does it even matter if, in the end, he will betray his own self, no matter how hard he tries not to betray others?

That day, he doesn’t even talk to Yamaguchi, running away from their usual lunch arrangements with the excuse of class duty. The sight of Yachi’s concerned face from across the classroom has him scattering to the bathroom, the flash of Hinata’s bright mop has him hiding behind a column. Just to last until tomorrow when the familiar mechanics of practice will relieve him of the dynamics of social relationships.

In the evening, he looks for Kageyama in his classroom, to return the scarf and give the snack cake. Someone tells him that Kageyama was called to the teachers’ lounge.

Stupid teachers to not let him get away with his bad grades, even on his birthday.

The longer Kei waits outside the teachers’ lounge, the more nervous he gets about meeting Kageyama. The insurmountable mountain of having to tell someone happy birthday when you’re both uncomfortable with the boundary between enemies and friends.

But of course, _of course, my stupid marionette heart with its strings in the hands of a fucking child,_ Kageyama comes out and Kei’s throat parches, his chest swells.

Inside his skull is a forest fire, and shelter is in Kageyama’s eyes.

“King,” he breathes. “I was waiting for you.”

Kageyama’s cheeks are a lovely dusty rose. He sounds just as breathless. “Hi.”

Kei tips his head towards the teachers’ lounge door. “Grades?”

That’s when he learns that Kageyama got scouted by Schweiden Adlers.

“It’s…” It’s a Division 1 team. “It’s great. Congratulations, Kageyama.”

Kageyama’s head whips up. In the depths of his eyes, gemstones out of a siren’s nest. In the melody of his voice, Kei’s head spins. “Thank you.”

His pathetic present to Kageyama hanging from his hand, Kei feels more inadequate than ever. He feels _less_.

Wouldn’t he extinguish the blaze in those eyes, dull the shining ends of its ice sculptures, if he got Kageyama all for himself?

He should reject, he should retreat; at the very least, he should reconsider. But the rising ocean he stares into, the rose colour dusting over Kageyama’s nose and ears, they tell him an entirely different story.

“Come on,” he finds himself saying, grabbing Kageyama’s wrist light enough that he could shrug it off if he wanted to, “let’s get some real cake. And coffee. To celebrate.”

It started snowing while they were at school. When they step out into the world slowly vanishing under a white sheet, Kei takes out the green scarf and hands it to Kageyama. When Kageyama just stares at the scarf, raises his eyes to meet Kei’s, dazed, Kei has no choice but to wrap it around Kageyama’s neck himself. Only because he has to, because he has an idiot in his hands.

As they’re about to enter the coffee shop of Kei’s choice, Kageyama speaks up.

“It looked better on you.”

Kei freezes with a hand on the door handle, but is quick to collect himself. “Don’t be ridiculous. Green is not my colour.”

He somehow hears Kageyama’s tiny smile, feels it in the hand that goes away as quickly as it comes into contact with the small of Kei’s back, smouldering trail in its wake Kei can sense even through four layers of clothing.

They leave two sets of footprints at the entrance, deepened with how long they’ve been standing there.

-

Kei’s greatest woe is how comfortable Kageyama’s got with smiling.

He used to be indifferent to his own birthday, wasting it away at practice like a clockwork machine. Now he’s blooming, blossoming like a snowdrop against the cottoned background of a small Miyagi town. Swallowed by the scenery Kei used to think, not long ago, that he grew out of. He’s the joy of Children’s Day, the joviality of Sapporo Snow Festival, and he’s so close that Kei could reach, if he just held out his hand.

If he could just hold out his hand.

They’re plodding through the deep snow, hands entangled since Kei doesn’t know when, and if he could just hold out his hand. Kageyama held out his, now it’s his turn, if he could just hold out his hand…

“Kageyama.” They’re nearing the front door of the Kageyama residence. It’s a quiet neighbourhood, away from the park and the playground.

Kageyama doesn’t look up. “Yeah?”

When Kei comes to a halt, stopping Kageyama’s momentum with their connected hands, he has to look up. And when those eyes are turned on Kei, Kei could do anything he’s too scared to do, that his conscious tells him is too risky, every little stupid act that would only go through the minds of idiots like Kageyama and Hinata, the only things that can give one carefree bliss in between the cruel turning of the cogs that make up this wild world.

“Happy birthday.”

Kageyama’s eyes are lost in the wrinkles of his smile. “Thank you.”

But Kei’s not done.

“Now, would you bestow upon me the honour of one last present? If you could just close your eyes.”

At Kageyama’s eyes fluttering close, Kei holds out his hand, and reaches.

Now they’re holding both hands. He feels the ridge of an old scar on Kageyama’s right palm.

His lungs refuse to allow in air, and he says, “I could be your boyfriend, if you also wanted to.”

Kageyama’s eyes fly open, windows into his soul; because he’s always been an open book, Kei just refused to read.

“Aren’t you going to say ‘I like you’?”

When Kei opens his mouth to deliver the retort his scowl promises, Kageyama races to continue, “Because it means I get to say ‘I like you’ first, and Hinata loses the bet to Yamaguchi and Yachi.”

Kei has a long way to go with these morons he calls his friends. And the worst of them all, his boyfriend.

“I like you, Tsukishima,” Kageyama says, barely above a whisper.

With the way he loses all thought to the scorching lips on his, the furnace in his arms, Kei doesn’t know who’s giving a present to whom.

**Author's Note:**

> english is not my first language, and i spent about five consecutive hours on this, so there might be errors. thank you for reading.


End file.
